Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's statement and acknowledge the significant amount of money that has come into counties Roscommon and Longford. The positive thing about this is that of the 170 schools that were notified they had been included, only three opted out for genuine reasons. I presume some of them will come back on stream again. It shows that schoolchildren, teachers and parents are very much pro this type of activity. In the area I am talking about, particularly regarding national schools and the local knowledge, there is Ballyfeeney National School out from Rooskey, there is Rooskey school, there is Slatta school, and there is Cloonfour, all in the immediate region. The problem we have is that it is extremely difficult to put routes on rural roads and in rural. We have to get it safe, we cannot take chances, and we all acknowledge that. I acknowledge that to put some of those routes in place would be very expensive. I presume, what the Minister of State will say is that schools can apply again when the time occurs and see what could be done in terms of possibly putting in part of route, whereby it may be possible for people to be dropped off at a point and then take their bikes to the school. That would be good.

I welcome the statement. I will go back to the schools about this. I am encouraged that the Government policy will be to continue this type of funding. The money is there now for next year.